NEW YORK  TV subscribers are ditching their cable companies at an ever faster rate the past few months, and many aren't signing up with a satellite or phone competitor.

Their willingness to simply go without pay television could be a sign that Internet TV services such as Netflix and Hulu are finally starting to entice people to cancel cable, though company executives blame the weak economy and housing market.

Third-quarter results reported this week by major cable and satellite TV companies show major losses, but don't settle the question of what's causing them.

If "cord-cutting" in favor of Internet video is finally taking hold, that has wide-ranging implications. Consumers who use the Internet to get their movies and TV shows bypass not just the cable companies, but the cable networks that produce the content. The move could have the same disruptive effect on the TV and movie industries as digital downloads have had on music.

A few weeks ago, the CEO of phone company Verizon Communications(VZ) likened cord-cutting to what started happening to local phone companies five or six years ago, when people started giving up landlines to rely solely on their cellphones.

"The first thing when that happens is you deny it," Ivan Seidenberg said. "I know the drill. I have been there."

On Thursday, Time Warner Cable's (TWC) chief operating officer, Landel Hobbs, said the company doesn't see evidence of people dropping cable in favor of the Internet. He said the biggest subscriber losses have been among people who don't have cable broadband services; high-speed Internet — from cable or a competitor — is key to watching video online. These people seem to be going to satellite or giving up pay TV entirely.

"The price of cable TV has risen to the point where it's simply not affordable to lots of lower-income homes. And right now there are an awful lot of lower-income homes," Sanford Bernstein analyst Craig Moffett says. "The evidence suggests that what we're seeing is a poverty problem rather than a technology phenomenon."

In addition, high unemployment means fewer new households, as kids are probably delaying moving out of their parents' houses, or people move in with roommates. That can reduce the number of households that pay for TV.

On the theory that college students might be among the first to drop cable TV, the company looked at changes in subscriber figures in college towns such as Austin, Texas, and Columbus, Ohio. They weren't out of line with previous years, and they corresponded to the level of student enrollment, he said.

"We'll continue to monitor cord-cutting, but haven't found evidence where you might expect to see it," Hobbs told analysts on a conference call.

Time Warner Cable lost 155,000 video subscribers in the July-September quarter, compared with 64,000 a year ago.

The only larger cable company, Comcast, (CMCS.A) reported last week that its subscriber loss more than doubled in the third quarter, to 275,000. Comcast said many of those leaving had taken advantage of low introductory rates the company offered last year when the analog TV broadcast network was shut down.

The country's eight largest publicly traded pay-TV companies, representing about 85% of the subscriber total, had reported their results for the third quarter by Friday. These cable, phone and satellite companies showed a combined gain of 66,700 video subscribers, or a 0.3% increase at an annualized rate, about a third the growth of the population.

The figure was a slight recovery from the seasonally weak second quarter, when they gained just 12,400 subscribers. But it's far short of the 401,300 subscribers gained a year ago.

Missing from the tally is the third-largest cable company, Cox Communications, which is privately held and doesn't report subscriber counts publicly. If it lost cable subscribers at the same rate as Comcast and Time Warner Cable, the nine largest pay-TV companies had zero net gain for the latest quarter and lost subscribers in the second.

Cable companies have been losing video subscribers for some time, but they have been compensating by upgrading basic subscribers to more expensive digital tiers, and adding broadband and phone subscribers.

However, both Time Warner Cable and Cablevision Systems (CVC) lost digital video subscribers in the third quarter. Both added record-low numbers of phone subscribers, as years of growth are coming to an end.

Meanwhile, Netflix's (NFLX) streaming movie service has become so popular that it is now the largest source of U.S. Internet traffic during peak evening hours, according to Sandvine, a Canadian company that supplies traffic-management equipment to Internet service providers.

A variety of gadgets can send Netflix's streams to the living room TV, including game consoles and the $99 Apple TV box. Many high-end TVs now come with the built-in ability to play Internet content.

Thomas Clancy Jr., 35, in Long Beach, N.Y., canceled the family's Cablevision subscription this spring. He said he has been happy with Netflix and other Internet video services since then, even though there isn't a lot of live sports to be had online.

"The amount of sports that I watched certainly didn't justify a hundred-dollar-a-month expense for all this stuff. I mean, that's twelve hundred dollars a year," Clancy said. "Twelve hundred dollars is ... near a vacation."

But Clancy — who is not related to Tom clancy the writer — is also an example of the hurdles cord cutters face. He uses an Internet-connected Blu-ray player to get Netflix movies to the TV. And he pulls a cable from his computer to the TV for Internet content Netflix doesn't have. Clancy owns a computer consulting firm and is tech-savvy enough to do all that. Most people wouldn't know how.

Cablevision wanted to raise Clancy's Internet bill when he canceled TV service. That would have made cord-cutting less attractive, but he happens to live in an area where Verizon provides Internet service at speeds comparable to the best cable offers. He got a better deal from Verizon and switched.

Most people who have the technological skills to take advantage of Internet video find that the selection of movies and shows isn't broad enough to make the jump worth it, Moffett says.

On the other hand, poor people have an excellent motive to cut cable and simply replace it with an antenna or nothing at all, Moffett says.

Cable companies would like to get low-income customers back with cheaper cable packages, but their hands are tied. Content providers such as The Walt Disney Co. and News Corp. won't license their channels one by one, so subscribers have to take expensive channel packages, or very basic ones that offer little beyond what's available with an antenna.

Content providers now get billions of dollars in fees from cable service providers, and they want to make sure that whatever new industry model comes along, they'll get paid. It's not obvious yet that Internet video will let them sustain their profit levels.

Six companies create the content that consumes 85% of U.S. viewing hours, Moffett said. "Until they get on board, the train's not leaving the station."

Copyright 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

To report corrections and clarifications, contact Standards Editor Brent Jones. For publication consideration in the newspaper, send comments to letters@usatoday.com. Include name, phone number, city and state for verification. To view our corrections, go to corrections.usatoday.com.

Guidelines: You share in the USA TODAY community, so please keep your comments smart and civil. Don't attack other readers personally, and keep your language decent. Use the "Report Abuse" button to make a difference. Read more.